Huldufólk
by NightjarPatronus
Summary: Part 2 of Veracity Verse: Two years after the war with BPO, Leon and Genevieve had grown tired of hiding. Hiding from the world, from themselves… From each other. Huldufólk (Icelandic and Faroese): hidden people, from huldu- "pertaining to secrecy" and fólk "people", "folk".
1. Chapter 1: Genevieve

Huldufólk

 **Summary** :

Two years after the war with BPO, Leon and Genevieve had grown tired of hiding. Hiding from the world, from themselves… From each other.

Huldufólk: (Icelandic and Faroese) hidden people, from _huldu-_ "pertaining to secrecy" and _fólk_ "people", "folk".

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 **A/N** :

Look who's back and ready to tackle the complicated mess of a world that is Veracity Verse!

I'm keeping the universe open as a canon-divergent AU series, for those of you who are interested. I am open to prompts and suggestions, and I can write about canon characters and/or my OCs, so long as they are compliant with Veracity's storyline.

A big thank you to my friend Gen (andguinevere on tumblr), without whom Veracity wouldn't have been made possible. This was your prompt and something you've been (very patiently) waiting for, so I hope you like this fic.

For those of you who haven't read "Veracity", a.k.a. Part 1 of my "Veracity Verse" series, you might wanna go do that. I won't force you, but this fic will make a lot more sense once you do.

 **Warning: MAJOR Veracity spoiler.**

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 _"In Iceland, there are small people, like elves, who live in the land. When I was young, I went into a cave and I heard one singing. She was singing a song my mother used to sing to me when I was young. It's quite a terrible song about a mother having to kill her baby, but I always found it so comforting._

 _"I heard her voice several times over the years. She told me I was born with a hex, and that if I stayed in Iceland, bad things would happen to me, and to the people that I loved. And then my mother died, and I believed it was my fault."_

— Riley Blue, from S01E06, "Demons"

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Chapter 1: Genevieve

They call themselves the Hidden People.

Members of the Archipelago—and all who had found themselves voluntarily or inevitably tangled up in this struggle for survival—had adopted the title from the Icelandic legend. It was fitting because no one believed in their existence. Because they had to fight a silent battle while the Sapien world watched on, oblivious to their fear.

Sometimes Genevieve wondered if the title served as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Most of the Sensates she met flinched at the sight of her camera. Others stared at the lens with blank expressions, piecing together how they could best collect themselves to appear inconspicuous. Genevieve could hear it in their minds, the wariness of being documented, the warnings from members of their Cluster. _What if it's a trap?_ They thought. _What if she's not who she says she is?_

Frustrations about her final photography project aside, Genevieve understood these people's fear. BPO may have vanished, but ideas could not. And somewhere, out there, people were still trying to find ways to eliminate her kind.

In the end, she'd managed to put together a portfolio before the deadline: eighty-eight photos in honor of the August 8th Cluster. She used her old works as starting points, photos taken as early as four years ago when she and her Cluster-mates had first established their safe house in Paris. The first photo she ever took in Paris was one of Damien and his mother. It was one of her most cherished photos, one she was unwilling to display.

It seemed ironic that she was contributing to the hidden-ness of the very people she was trying to unveil.

The collection, _Huldufólk_ , proved to be a success. Judges from all over Europe came and admired her work. The recent photo of Amélie and her _maman_ at the Sensorium Children Shelter was the centerpiece of the installation—they'd agreed to be photographed on the porch of the shelter, their shared strawberry ice cream cone dripping in their clutches as they sat on the front steps. Behind the photo, all the crisscrossing red strings overlapped, connecting the other Hidden People lined up around the inter-web to the small but apparently loving family.

The same cork board and the same strings Henrik once used to track down the missing Blocker traders.

 _"_ _Why them?" Niels, her mentor, had asked when she'd shown him the finalized collection two weeks before. "Why the mother and child? What's their secret?"_

 _Without realizing, Genevieve had removed her consciousness from her body and drifted over to where Leon was visiting, standing behind her in her mentor's office. Leon turned to her with a wink and smudge of green paint on his cheek and chuckled in response to her silent question as he spun his paintbrush deftly between his fingers._ Wouldn't you like to know? _Leon thought, winking._

 _"_ _It's not my place to tell," Genevieve said._

 _Her eyes darted back to meet Leon's. She didn't know what she was seeking, but when he looked back at her, she heard his mind echoing the same words._

 _Niels frowned as he re-examined the photo of the mother-and-child, paying particular attention to the melting ice cream. A smile betrayed him, finally, when his eyes traveled over to the little girl's grin._

 _"_ _I suppose everyone knows something no one ever suspects." Niels handed back all her photos in the folder with an approving nod. "But a photography collection doesn't end with the photos themselves. Think about how you want to set this up in the exhibition. Think about the installation—the presentation matters as much as the content itself. What kind of story are you going to tell?"_

 _"_ _A story only they know." She nodded at her folder, at the people inside. "A story others can't begin to fathom, save for bits and pieces."_

On the day of the exhibition, the visitors marveled over the people, the Sensates, Genevieve showcased: some were photographed cooking in the kitchen of the Paris safe house, some in the middle of an animated discussion regarding their freedom, some waving from the opposite side of the street in a remote location most maps couldn't name…

She'd spent the past two years of her academic career traveling and searching for her old connections, updating their old photos with ones that reflect their newfound but still hidden life. It only occurred to her, as she was putting up her board, that the people in her photographs were the ones who'd found _her_. But to everyone else, they looked like photos. Normal photos. Photos of just… people.

 _These blokes aren't the only one with secrets, are they?_ Leon thought, peeking at her from behind the cork board, his expression somewhere between "brooding" and "proud".

 _We're one to talk,_ she quipped back.

Leon walked out from behind the board and circled around her, pretending to scrutinize her. _Who'd have thought this innocent Irish girl turned out to be a killer?_

She smirked. _Who'd have thought the big dopey bloke in the Hawaiian shirt is capable of the same?_

He walked out from behind the board and brought up memories of the night they chased down the BPO vans on the streets of London with Nomi and the others, the night they shot every guard and Hazsuit in sight. _Hmm. We'd do well as renegades._

On the other side of Amsterdam, Gina flinched at the memory from the night they lost Henrik, and the next thing Genevieve knew, Leon had disappeared from view with nothing more than a silent apology.

Genevieve sighed and turned to the judges who were passing by her installation, putting on a smile like the ones her old friends put on for the sake of the photos, forcing the brimming tears back into her eyes. They shook her hands and congratulated her, and, after scrutinizing the photos one more time, asked about her inspiration.

"Why these people?" someone asked. "How are they connected?

"They look like they could have been anyone," another said.

She told them sometimes, it's people in plain sight that hide the most about themselves.

The judges' lingering presence at Genevieve's exhibit made the other visitors stop in their tracks. They came over to try and analyze her work, hoping to impress her with how much hidden depth they could uncover from the photographs alone, concluding underwhelming half-truths from her bits and pieces.

They wondered why the little girl had only a mother, but couldn't guess the real reason her father was no longer here.


	2. Chapter 2: Leon

Chapter 2: Leon

Leon had never been good at hiding.

Not when he and James and Tommo and Widge and Harry would take the tube to somewhere in Greater London with backpacks full of spraying cans and acrylic paint, looking for the next bit of wall to use as their canvas. Not when they were trying and failing to follow Bankski's footsteps; their longest record was five hours before someone who lived in a flat across the street with a full view of their vandalism phoned the police. And certainly not when his granddad showed up at the station two hours later with the bail money, and he had to walk out from the front door, fully escorted by men in uniforms for all to see.

Even when Leon was living in Paris with his Cluster, when he'd make sure to put his hood up so no one remembered his face when he went out shopping for groceries, there were still people who stopped and stared. They stopped because even when he whispered, his voice came on too strong, too loud, and because he couldn't help but smile when he caught them watching. They stared because his presence in the room was hard to miss. Genevieve used to joke he was a human magnet, and his charisma a double-edged sword.

Camouflage, for him, only worked in theory.

Still, he missed his old life. He missed when he didn't worry about getting caught.

Some days after he dropped Damien off at school, he'd find himself wandering back to the places he and his fellow artists used as impromptu art galleries. He was always wielding a spray can of golden paint he never opened, wondering what he could tell the world now that half of it knew him as a hero. On one of those days, he was overtaken by the impulse to act on his wish. He walked back and forth along the wall behind a pub, one with chipping gray paint, revealing the red bricks underneath.

He pondered over what he could say for an hour before he knelt down and scribbled one word over the length of it, large enough to be seen from across the road.

 _Lies_.

And after two years of being "dead", plus two more years rebuilding the identity of Leon Okechukwu Tucker from scratch with help from the Veracity hackers, _this_ was the act that put a dent on Leon's new and clean criminal record. As he traced over the word with the spray can over and over, he was too entrenched in how _wrong_ this felt to notice the cops creeping up on him. The next thing he knew, he was raising his arms above his head, caught red-handed with his spraying can.

His first thought when he was forced into the police car was, _What would Damien think?_

Somewhere in Amsterdam, Genevieve rolled her eyes on her bus ride back to the Sensorium Children's Shelter and called him a bloody idiot.

He used his allocated phone call to ask James to pick up Damien, never mind that he hadn't talked to his best friend in nearly four years, save for his first Christmas in Paris, when he'd called to tell James all was well. He hadn't reached out at all since he returned after the war with BPO with Damien in tow to start over. Because for some reason, though he had never been good at hiding, he'd decided to hide from James.

The reason became clear when, two hours later, James showed up at the station with bail money and a very amused Damien.

"Well," James said, clapping him on the shoulder, "same old Leon."

Even as James said it, they both realized it couldn't be further from the truth.

"Thanks for the bail," was all Leon could muster in return.

It wasn't only Leon's hair that changed, though his low, frizzy ponytail with the bleached blonde streaks gave off the impression that he was much older. But now he walked as if he was weighed down by an invisible anchor, and talked like someone could always be listening in. And the way he looked behind his shoulders every time he crossed the street? That was something the old Leon would never have cared to consider.

James, on the other hand, hadn't changed at all. Everything about James was familiar: the blonde wavy hair, the red flannel shirt with the buttons halfway undone, the sparkling gray eyes that softened everyone's hard glares… Looking at James now, Leon felt like he'd taken a trip back in time. This was the James he had once fallen in love with.

"Your granddad's busted me out more times than my own brother. It's the least I can do." James shrugged like it was no big deal, trying to ease the tension.

On the ride back to Leon's flat, Damien winked and flashed him a devious smile. Leon gave Damien a stern, "don't you bloody think about following my example" look. He could have sworn James snorted, having witnessed the whole exchange from the rearview mirror—one of the many reminders that this was something the old Leon would never have done.

They didn't talk about the fact that Leon never told James he'd come back from Paris. They didn't talk at all.

"Is this goodbye, then?" James finally asked when they stopped in front of their building, shoulders slumped like he already knew the answer.

Damien had climbed out from the back seat to wait by the door, giving them space.

Leon opened his mouth to say goodbye, but hearing James' voice brought him back to the last time they thought they'd never see each other again. James had walked with him to St. Pancras and asked him to please try and "stay the fuck alive" in Paris with his Cluster. And this James, standing on the sidewalk, was the spitting image of that man—right down to the same sad, lopsided smile.

The words caught in Leon's throat. "I missed your voice, Jamie," he said. The old nickname made James chuckle. "I missed _you_."

Their hand found each other's by the time Damien had swiped the keys from Leon's pocket and whispered "I'll be in my room" before he ran up the stairs. They kissed in the lobby with James pinned against the wall of mailboxes, lips crashing in a rekindled passion. Leon fumbled to undo the rest of James' buttons and slid his hand down James' body.

It was like rediscovering a favorite puzzle. Leon's hands stopped under the slight curve of the muscles on James' chest. He ran his thumb across the old scar too close to his heart, a souvenir from a bar brawl gone wrong back in 2013 that landed James in the accident and emergency and his drunk assailant in prison. Leon had been watching when they'd picked out the shattered glass and stitched James up, biting his lip so hard he drew blood. He'd thought this was the closest he'd get to feeling someone else's pain.

James was familiar, but Leon was anything but.

"I'm sorry," Leon muttered. He took a step back, breaking contact, though his fingertip lingered on James' skin for a second longer as his eyes committed the scar to memory.

"I know," James whispered, meeting his eyes reluctantly. Leon watched James button up his shirt three-fourth of the way to the top, hiding more of himself.

"I still love you, Jamie. And I always will. But not like this."

"Not like this." James nodded in silent understanding. "Can I see you again?"

Leon nodded. "I really do miss you."

Damien was watching him from the kitchen island when he came back to his flat alone, the leftover chicken tikka masala from yesterday's takeaway heating in the microwave. "Weren't there two of you?"

Leon laughed and ruffled Damien's hair, messing up the layers of gel the boy had obsessively combed into his hair that morning. "Oh, stuff it."

"Did you at least… say a _proper_ goodbye?" Damien wiggled his eyebrows.

"I am a terrible influence." The microwave beeped, and Leon spun around to retrieve their dinner. He cursed when he realized the plate was burning hot and he'd forgotten to put on his mitts, proving his own point.

"You're the worst," Damien agreed. "It's a good thing you're cool."

"Well." Leon plopped down on a stool and shoved the plate between them, digging in with a giant fork. "Give it another three years, mate, and you'll be callin' me old."

"You've still got it. You vandalized a wall today."

"I am a bloody. Terrible. Influence," Leon repeated, stabbing a piece of chicken violently with his fork.

"How's it feel to be a criminal again?"

"Odd."

"Yeah?" Damien asked through a mouthful of food.

"We've got our mural up at the Lilac Inn, don't we?" Leon said. "A proper mural. Feels odd that I'm goin' back to playin' Bankski. There's no point, you know?"

"Are you really plannin' to play Bankski again?" Genevieve asked behind him.

Leon groaned and turned around, taking in her disapproving frown. "Evening."

"Evening, Genevieve!" Damien made a big show of waving at thin air, accustomed to the invisible visitors by now, though he insisted in two years he'd be able to see them properly.

"No," Leon mumbled sheepishly. "Dunno what I was thinking, Gen."

"I told you not to call me that." She tried to sound angry, but her smile betrayed her. She leaned forward, propping her arms against the kitchen counter. "So? Why'd you do it?"

"Erm… Trip down memory lane?"

Damien laughed. Genevieve tutted her tongue. "You're setting an awful example."

Leon felt Genevieve's presence in his memory, scanning for evidence that he was lying, that he was planning to do this again behind her back. Apparently, she'd found none; when she looked at him again, she was smiling.

The same thought played over and over in their shared mind, pulled from his earlier confrontation with the cops. _What would Damien think?_

"You really have changed, haven't you?" she whispered.

"Too bloody much."

If someone were to tell Leon four years ago that he'd be the guardian, the honorary big brother, of a foreign boy who'd lost his parents in a war, he'd have snorted and said _not bloody likely_. But there were a lot of things that weren't "bloody likely" in his life. Didn't mean they didn't happen, though.

The decision to take Damien to London was almost instantaneous. Genevieve had silently assumed the task of looking after Gina under the guise of continuing her studies. Being around them would have made it difficult for Damien to move on when he'd be constantly reminded of Henrik's death. As for Miki, before the war, her lifestyle was nomadic, to say the least. She was always traveling in search of something, never staying in one place for long. So there was no place for her to return to, only a list of future destinations.

What Damien needed, they agreed, was a constant, something reliable and unchanging.

Since when did Leon become a constant?

* * *

 **A/N** :

Thanks for reading! Comments are much appreciated :)

If you want to chat, you can talk to me here or on tumblr (I'm chaptersonetoinfinity). Although I'm taking a bit of a tumblr break, my PM will always be open!


	3. Chapter 3: Genevieve

Chapter 3: Genevieve

It's already ten at night by the time Genevieve leaves the Sensorium Children's Shelter, riding her bike back to her flat in the pouring rain. Gina had asked her to share her bed at the shelter instead of returning to her flat in the dark. But Genevieve couldn't stay with her. She knows Gina would rather be alone tonight, too. The grief is overwhelming enough without being in close proximity to the source of it all.

They'll turn twenty-five in two hours, and Gina's pain bleeds through the connection like a freshly-reopened wound.

The red walls of the Amsterdam Centraal come into view on her way back, three blocks away from her flat. She hops off her bike and scowls at the train station. Ghosts from her past glide by, unaware they were nothing more than memories in her mind.

In her mind's eye, the rain fades, leaving her standing under the sun by the front gate in a khaki green windbreaker and ripped jeans. She had drawn her hood up and pulled down the drawstrings to hide the tangle of red hair that could be spotted from a mile away. Even if no one knew it was her, the hair was still drawing unwanted attention.

Henrik had been the only one who had noticed her presence. He'd skimmed through her mind to see where she was, then tapped her on the shoulder from behind. She turned to see him winking at her, a large camping backpack slung over his shoulder and an overfilled duffle bag in hand. She was on her way to Paris—the other three members of her Cluster had already settled into the safe house—but she'd decided to buy a ticket to Amsterdam from Dublin so she could have a companion the rest of the way. Veracity had hacked all their records to say they were dead, but they could never be too careful. It was always easier to hide from the prying eyes of BPO when there were more minds and bodies at work.

"Train doesn't leave 'till five," he'd said to her. "Let's wait out here in the sun."

And now she sees Henrik in the present, standing by the racks where she'd parked her bike, rain dripping down the soft blond curls of his hair onto the white t-shirt that clings to his body. He wears a quizzical expression on his face. He looks real. Solid. Not like a ghost, but like he's here in real time, asking if she really knows what she's doing.

All Genevieve can think of, as she shrugs in response to his silent question and brushes past him, is that Henrik can't possibly be soaked from the rain.

He doesn't follow her as she makes her way into the station and stops in front of the big screen with the train schedules. She crosses her legs on the unoccupied bench and stares at the screen, at the changing times and blinking rows. Her eyes fixate on London – St. Pancras International. That train, the last of the night, leaves in half an hour.

She doesn't know what compels her to buy a ticket to London, but she knows she doesn't want to be alone tonight anymore, not when she's haunted by a memory.

The rain had caught up with her by the time she arrives in London. Jesus fucking Christ, she should have taken Gina up on that spare poncho offer. But in her defense, she'd thought she was riding home, and home was ten minutes away from the shelter by bike. Instead, she ends up in fucking England three-hours-and-forty-minutes later. She'd dried herself up at the Amsterdam Centraal by squatting underneath a hand dryer for a good five minutes while she waited for her train, but it was all for moot. As soon as she steps out into London in search for the Uber she'd called, she's soaking again.

Genevieve finds Leon's flat from memory and climbs up the stairs two steps at a time like she's trying to outrun something. Someone. She feels him watching through her eyes as she stops at the third-floor landing, knowing he'll open the door without her having to knock. He peeks out from the narrowly-opened door, the safety chain still fastened over it. She rolls her eyes; she can't blame him for the paranoia.

"Alright. Hot shower. Now," Leon insists, swinging the door fully open so she can step inside—no question about why she's there, whether she plans on a short stay or a long visit, and why the bloody hell she didn't bring an umbrella. The perks of being Cluster-mates is he'll know eventually, even if she can't find the right words to explain.

She feels his surprise. They hadn't seen each other in person for two years, after all, and. She'd spent the whole train ride blasting Hamilton soundtracks through her headphones, isolating her mind so no one could see where she was. He locks the door behind him and grumbles about her dripping rain-water all over the carpet, but when she sticks out her tongue and says, "Good to see you, too, knucklehead," his smile betrays him.

Leon's standing by the bathroom door when she gets out of the shower with a towel wrapped snugly around her body. His presence startles her, and for God knows what reason she feels herself blush.

Leon chuckles. "I've seen you in worse states, Gen."

Genevieve raises her chin high and walks swiftly past him into the living room, where (she notices) he'd already hung her rain-soaked clothes on a rack. She takes the robe hanging from the door of the walk-in closet. "Thought I told you not to call me that."

"I've literally seen you naked!" he calls after her as she steps inside to change.

"I know." She opens the door again when she's dressed, wringing her hair with the towel she'd used to cover herself. "I was there. Don't fucking remind me."

"So." He steps aside to let her pass into the living room, adding a dramatic flair to his voice. "What brings you here? On our birthday, no less?"

"It's past midnight?" She halts.

"It's two in the bloody morning. You're not running a fever again, are you?"

"You wish." She brushes him off and tries not to cringe at that memory.

It happened back in Paris two months after she and her Cluster had moved in together. She'd gone out to the farmer's market and gotten lost on her way home, and that was when it started to rain like hell. To make things worse, the transport system was a fucking mess. She'd probably taken the wrong bus, and she ended up walking five miles with the guidance of a paper map that was falling apart before she'd finally stumbled upon the neighborhood where their safe house was. By night time she was burning. Hospitals were out of the question, so Miki had prepared a lukewarm bath, and Leon had carried her in while Gina and Henrik labored away in the kitchen, making way too much chicken soup.

That was the time Leon had seen her naked. She remembers because he'd seen the usually-hidden tattoo on her side near her breast when he'd lowered her into the water. It's a tattoo of an aster with purple and lilac petals and a green stem that gradually fades into the color of her skin, a delicate drawing of hers that the tattoo artist had replicated, something only her past partners—and now Leon, too—had seen.

And he had the audacity to point it out. Or, at least, that's how she remembers it.

Or was it? To her, the memory was blurred, clouded over by a feverish haze. She doesn't realize she's seeing it through his mind that until she hears him chuckle.

"So what did you say?" she asks as she's pulled back into the present, curiosity taking over.

"I said it suits you." Leon puffs out his chest ever so smugly.

"And what did I say?" Genevieve imagined she wouldn't have been too happy no matter how incoherent her mind had rendered her.

"If I remember correctly—" he frowns, and she knows he's pretending to be in deep thought. "Oh, yes, you told me I smelled like lavender. Bloody lavender, of all things. We thought you'd lost it."

"I did not."

"You did." He let her glimpse that part of the memory again.

She groans. "Maybe it was my shampoo."

"Maybe." He laughs, shaking his head, and hands her a hairdryer.

"Is this my birthday present, then?" She looks at him, then at the contraption in her hands she never imagined Leon owning.

"It's Damien's."

"Oh, fuck," she lowers her voice to a whisper, "Damien—"

"He's a heavy sleeper, you're fine."

She sits on the floor right in front of the couch, plugging the hairdryer into the first outlet she sees. "What's he got a hairdryer for?"

"I call it his pre-pubescent exploration of identity." He joins her on the floor, never mind that the couch is right there. "He's got hair gel, a leather jacket, AXE body sprays…"

"Oh, God."

Leon nods sagely as she begins to blow her hair, ducking her head low. Her curls take form again as the water evaporates, sticking out at all angles, shielding her face from his living room. That's why she doesn't notice when he snatches the hairdryer from her hand and turns the wind on high, blasting her hair right into her face.

"Leon—" she sputters, puffing a ringlet out of her mouth—"Okechukwu—"she pushes herself up and kneels in front of him, grabbing his shoulder—"Tucker! Stop!"

The wind stops, and all she can see is his cheeky grin. "Yes, Merida?"

She flicks him hard on the forehead and snatches the hairdryer back, grumbling at the Disney Princess comparison she'd been unfortunately subject to since 2012.

"Don't call me Merida."

Leon stands up, bows, and retorts, "Yes, Your Highness," before lending her a hand.

"Hmm." Genevieve pulls herself up. "I can live with Your Highness."

He lends her one of his shirts to wear to bed, an old Beatles t-shirt. It smells like charcoal and acrylic paint and has a splatter of blue paint on the sleeve. She's pretty sure she'd worn this in the past. When their Cluster used to live together, they'd swapped clothes more times than they could count. They all used to fit so comfortably in each other's space. It's one of the things she misses most about living apart.

"Why'd you come?" he asks again when she's leaning against his doorframe to say goodnight.

"Dunno." She frowns. "I was bored. Wanted to see you." Didn't wanna be alone.

It's dark in the room, but she knows he's smiling.

"There's room for two, you know." He scoots over in his bed. "You don't have to sleep on the couch. Come on. Nothing we haven't done before."

She snorts. To any other Sapien, it might seem pretty indecent. But Sensates would understand—she's certain hers weren't the only Cluster who had shared a bed at some point. She remembers one night in Paris when Gina and Henrik had gotten a little too drunk from their late-night impromptu karaoke session and passed out on the couch using each other as a human pillow while she, Leon, and Miki had stumbled over to the master bedroom where the couple usually stayed and fell asleep there. Genevieve and Leon had woken up shivering; Miki was a blanket-hogger.

Still, Genevieve makes sure to take only the half of the blanket on her side and stay on said side as she climbs in. She turns to face him with a stern "don't say anything" glower. He winks but keeps his mouth shut.

"How've you been?" she whispers even though there's no one around to hear. Miki's stirring in bed somewhere in East Siberia as dawn sneaks up on her, and Gina certainly isn't asleep but is doing her best to keep her mind walled in from all intrusions tonight.

Thinking about Gina made Genevieve wonder if she should have insisted she stayed at the shelter, after all. What if—

"Gina can take care of herself," Leon says.

"Last year she didn't wanna be alone," Genevieve tells him.

Last year Gina didn't even pretend she'd be fine on her own. With their connection, it would have been too easy to see through her mask. So she and Genevieve had spent the night in silence, gazing mindlessly out the window of the children's shelter. They'd set out as soon as dawn broke to visit all the places in Amsterdam they'd seen in Henrik's memories, hunting for glimpses of him they refused to call ghosts.

Living in the past, it seemed, was a one-time remedy.

"I know." Leon pulls the blanket up so it covers her shoulder. "I never got to say thank you for staying with her."

"You don't have to thank me. It's what any of us would've done."

"But we didn't," he insists. "You did."

They all knew Genevieve was the best choice. Reminders of Henrik may have been necessary for Gina to come to terms with her loss, but Leon would have stayed in denial and immersed himself in his work so he wouldn't have time to grieve. Miki would have stayed angry. When they'd taken Henrik's body away to be cremated, Miki had tackled one of the nurses and demanded they leave him alone. Reminders of Henrik's death would only have made her worse.

And Damien needed a fresh start, someplace where he could be his own self without being constantly confronted by the past, and Leon was the only one capable of that.

"I stayed because I wanted to," Genevieve says.

She turns away from him then, because even as she says it, they both know it isn't true. She's always been the mirror of emotions, the one who'd cry in another person's place, the one who'd absorb half of someone's pain when they couldn't deal with it on their own, making it easier for them to let go. When Leon's granddad had passed away a few months before Gina nearly got caught, before they decided to all move to Paris, she was the one who grieved alongside him until it passed. And now she was doing it again.

No. Genevieve stayed because she was the only one who could.

So, like Leon's decision to take Damien home with him, Genevieve's decision to stay with Gina had been immediate. Gina wouldn't have wanted any of them to stay on her behalf, but Genevieve had insisted she needed to finish her photography degree anyway, so she may as well do it in Amsterdam. She'd told Gina it was so she could feel closer to Henrik, the same reason Gina herself had chosen this city.

"And?" Leon asks. He's tracing the Lupus constellation tattoo across her left shoulder blade like he'd do every time she wears something that reveals her shoulders. This normally would have annoyed her because it tickles, but this time she lets the sensation linger for a few seconds. "Did it help?"

"Can't say." She snuggles closer inside the blanket, and he moves his hand away. "I dunno—"she yawns—"I dunno what would've happened if I'd left, too."

"Do you want to try it now?" Leon asks, inching closer.

Genevieve doesn't realize how much she misses being his physical presence until she feels his heat. She closes her eyes and wishes he'll stay like this, their bodies touching. He does, and she's too tired to wonder if it's because he heard what she was thinking. "Try what?"

"Try staying in London for a bit."

It sounds like a tempting offer. Maybe a little time away is what she needs. But what about Gina? another voice in her mind asks. It sounds like Henrik's.

"Maybe. I… No." She shakes her head. "I can't."

* * *

 **A/N** :

Yes, there is a shift in tense from past to present. Yes, it is intentional. Chapters 1 and 2 are reflective. The rest are as well, but they're more grounded in the... well, present. Hope you enjoyed :)


	4. Chapter 4: Leon

Chapter 4: Leon

Leon wakes up on the morning of his birthday to find the bed empty and the bedroom door closed. A quick peek at his phone tells him it's already noon.

"Bloody hell!"

He leaps out of bed and sprints out, nearly hitting his face against a wall.

Genevieve giggles, appearing behind him. "Somebody slept in."

"Damien, is he—"

"I dropped him off," she says, matter-of-factly, before vanishing.

"Good. Good." He scratches the back of his head and wanders into the kitchen, where the kid in question is standing in the kitchen rummaging through the fridge. "Morning, Damien. Wait a minute—"

"It's Saturday, knucklehead!" Genevieve calls from the couch.

"Happy birthday, knucklehead!" Damien echoes.

He shoots Damien a death-glare before turning to Genevieve again. She's reading a secondhand copy of _The Art of Looking Sideways_ he'd bought from the Camden Market last week. Not her usual genre, but he knows she reads whatever she can get her hands on. Right now she's using the armrest on the side of the couch like a reading table as she kneels on the cushiony seat of the couch, leaning forward so her hair falls in front of her face. It looks awfully uncomfortable, the way she's sitting on her ankles, propping her elbows against her thighs. But he knows she'd probably found herself in this position when she'd opened the book, and by then, she'd have been lost to the world, frozen to the spot.

Leon chuckles in spite of himself, though vaguely, he remembers he's supposed to be mad.

"What?" She finally lifts her head from the page she's on and turns around, craning her neck, trying to meet his eyes without having to move the rest of her body.

"I imagined you sitting in that exact spot." He takes out an apple from the bowl on the kitchen counter and twirls it in his hand.

"Imagined" was a bloody understatement, and Damien knows it, and Leon prays he won't let it slip. He used to find himself looking at the empty space on the couch sometimes, wondering how Genevieve would like it here in London, if she'd still insist on sharing the couch with him when there are a million other places she could not-sit until she boots him out of the space altogether to claim the couch for herself.

Genevieve laughs. "Sitting?"

"No, no." He juggles the apple. "Squatting there like a bloody kangaroo."

"I wanted more light from the window," she defends.

"Light? Natural light?" Leon laughs, placing the apple back into the bowl as he saunters into the open kitchen. He could have just let it go, but he never does. Not if there's a chance to push her buttons and watch her glower. "You're in bloody England—"

He opens the fridge to check whether they have any iced coffee left. Coffee is his lifeblood, especially on weekends, when he and Damien would go out into the city in search of sketch-worthy scenes and not return 'till dark.

"We literally have no food left," Damien tells him as his eyes register the empty shelves.

"Really? Not even eggs?"

Damien waves the emptied carton sitting on the counter. "Not even eggs."

"And you're questioning _my_ life choices." Genevieve hops up from the couch. "We had the last eggs for breakfast three hours ago while you were in there snoring your head off. Christ knows how you two managed to survive two years on your own."

"I don't snore!"

"Yes you do," Damien points out.

"Bloody traitor, you are." He grabs his leather jacket from the rack and beckons them both out, taking his messenger bag full of sketchbooks along. "We'll go out for breakfast, then."

" _Lunch_ , you mean," Damien says, throwing on an identical jacket.

Leon hides a smile. They'd gotten that jacket tailored to Damien's size to replicate Leon's style—his own jacket was an old birthday present from James back when they were still in school, a style he couldn't find on the market anywhere. When he and Damien went out like this, they felt like brothers. Leon had always wanted a little brother.

Genevieve shakes her head. "I'm surprised you two haven't bickered to death yet."

By the time they'd entered the restaurant, the bickering has turned three-way, and Leon can hear Miki sighing exasperatedly from her cabin near Lake Baikal, half-heartedly demanding that they knock it off. Gina's staying silent, but she isn't blocking off her mind anymore. Once or twice, Leon can feel her presence in his mind, tuning in to their conversation about Damien's school and their weekend artistic ventures into parks and museums.

Although it's their birthday, Leon never misses a chance to seek out new artistic inspiration. So in the afternoon, they find themselves in Hyde Park near Damien's school, sitting at a bench, watching people feed the ducks by the lake—save for Genevieve, who had chosen to sit on the armrest of the bench instead of on the smooth surface made for that exact purpose. Damien's been exploring with charcoal lately, so he dusts off the excess charcoal from his notebook and stares at the colorful ducks, trying to figure out how to capture the scene in black and white. Leon, under Genevieve's watchful eye, deftly avoids the parchment sketchbook in his bag and plucks out the one with the black paper.

"You're gonna draw the ducks… silver?" Genevieve peeks over his shoulder as he begins, laying out the general outline of the lake and the surrounding trees.

"Why not." Leon shakes the pen to let the ink flow, before gliding the ballpoint tip across the scratchy surface of the paper. "Haven't done an inverted sketch in weeks."

"What _have_ you been working on, then?" She props her elbow against the back of the bench, leaning closer.

"You," Damien says before Leon can come up with an answer, a smirk playing at his lips.

Genevieve frowns. "Me?"

"He's been sketching you," Damien singsongs.

Leon elbows him on the side gently and mutters, "Not cool, mate."

"Show me." She smiles deviously.

"After I finish the ducks—" he makes a grab for his sketchbook, but Genevieve had already snatched it away—"oi! Give it back!"

"I will after you show me," she insists. "Promise."

Damien smirks, getting up. "I'm gonna go get myself some ice cream."

"Bring me back a scoop," Leon says, handing him his wallet.

"Make it two. I want cookie dough," Genevieve says, stuffing the sketchbook behind her back, out of Leon's reach.

Leon sighs and gives in, opening his sketchbook—the one he'd tried to hide from her, the one with the parchment paper—to the most recent page. He holds it up, waiting for her to take in every detail. The drawing features Genevieve sitting cross-legged on his couch back home, reading Damien's illustrated copy of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ by the unusually sunlit window. In the sketch, her brows are knitted in concentration, and she's inclining her head, letting her curls tumble down around her face without a care as she tries to make out the tiny details of the drawings by Jim Kay, preserving an artist's vision and interpretation of this well-known story inside her mind.

He supposes Genevieve could have searched in his mind for memories of his sketches instead of going through all this effort to see them in person. She gives him a knowing look when their eyes meet, and he knows that she believes things feel much more intense under the scrutiny of her own senses.

"There you have it," he mutters, lowering the sketchbook.

Genevieve hands back his other sketchbook. "Are you mad?" she asks. Her tone is playful, but he hears—rather than feels, or senses—her uncertainty.

 _Just a little embarrassed,_ he thinks before he can stop himself.

She smiles, a smile without teasing, and moves down from the armrest to sit, properly sit, next to him. "Don't be. I love it."

He turns away to look at the ducks again, wondering why the bloody hell it's taking so long for Damien to get ice cream. "Oh. Erm, that's… Thanks."

Her hand on his shoulder prompts him to look at her again. "Does my hair really look like that from above?" She ducks down, then lifts her head back up, wearing a quizzical expression on her face he'd modeled many of his sketches after.

Leon leans in closer, pretending to scrutinize the jungle of red curls framing her face. She mirrors his expression, and, when he knows he's gonna catch her unaware, he reaches up and ruffles her hair until it's a frizzy mess. "Now it does."

Genevieve tries to smack him on the arm. He dodges reflexively, having learned from trial and error while they'd lived in the same house, but catches her fist before it could land on the hard wood of the bench. They're laughing hysterically now, mindful but not caring that others are likely wondering if they're okay, laughing in the other's place with twice the intensity as they look at their reflection from each other's eyes.

He pushes her fist back to her and lets go. "You'll never catch me with your fists anymore, G. I've lived and learned."

"G?"

"Genevieve's too bloody long," he complains.

"G. Hmm." She considers this for a moment, biting her bottom lip. "I like G."

Damien had, it turns out, taken a very leisurely detour around the entirety of the lake before making his way to the ice cream stand. By the time he comes back, Leon had already gone back to sketching his silver ducks, and Genevieve's watching him silently, tilting her head when he's tilting his hand, tracking the tip of his pen with curious eyes. Damien clears his throat and shoves the cup of ice cream (one scoop of cookie dough, which Genevieve adores, and one mint chocolate chip, Leon's favorite, which she insists tastes like frozen toothpaste) under Leon's nose.

"So," he says, winking when Leon looks up and takes the cup from him. "What did I miss?"

They spend the rest of the afternoon sketching and feeding and chasing ducks. Genevieve's own attempt at sketching proves to be a frustrating effort, and it's only after Leon moves behind her and puts his hand on top of hers to guide the movement of her fingers and wrists that she starts to relax. Damien points out that Genevieve technically knows how to draw just as well, thanks to her Cluster connection with Leon, but they don't stop. They both silently agree that this feels more organic, more personal, than sharing.

Genevieve skips into the living room after they get back home and dives for the copy of _The Art of Looking Sideways_ lying on the couch, eager to pick up where she left off at noon. Damien insists he's about to die of starvation very soon and runs straight into the kitchen where they keep the takeaway menus. Leon, chuckling, makes a move to follow Damien but stops abruptly when Gina's visiting form appears to avoid stepping on her.

She greets him with a tired smile, and he wonders if she'd slept at all last night. Genevieve looks up from where she's already sitting cross-legged on the couch, letting the book lie across her lap before she meets Gina's eyes with a silent nod.

 _He's growing up so fast,_ Gina thinks fondly.

"Evening, Gina." Damien waves in Leon's general direction.

None of the Sensates are surprised Damien can tell who's visiting anymore. He'd told Leon a few months back that the way Leon reacted to visitors was different. When Genevieve comes, for example, Leon would put on the biggest smile. It was like his sub-conscience knows he's smitten before the rest of him can stop himself. But if Genevieve had heard what Damien had told him, she didn't say anything. Luckily.

 _He misses you,_ Leon thinks.

 _I thought he'd be angry._ Gina sits down next to Damien, watching him with wistful eyes. He doesn't notice at first, but, sensing how quiet the room is, he looks over to the empty chair beside him and winks.

 _Don't think he ever was angry,_ Genevieve points out. She's still reading her book, but Leon can tell she's tuning in to the conversation.

Leon nods along, but there's a lingering hint of hesitation in his mind that Gina picks up. He finds himself doing that a lot with non-Sensates these days, not trusting them fully with their thoughts. It's awful to assume things, but compared to his Cluster, with whom he can be certain about everything—well, _almost_ everything—communicating with an unborn Sensorium does have its barriers.

 _Maybe he should be,_ Gina thinks.

Gina and Henrik had decided, a year into their shared life in Paris, that if Damien were to agree to stay with them should anything happen to his mother, they would move to a new country. Perhaps somewhere in North America, somewhere they could finish school and start a new life together. Wolfgang had convinced Henrik to make the offer to Damien, but the news of Lila's escape—and the subsequent frenzy of trying to find new places to relocate some, if not all, of the allies involved in BPO's eventual takedown—hadn't given Gina and Henrik enough time to think about approaching the subject.

Still, Henrik didn't want to leave the question until after the battle. So three nights before they stormed BPO, he and Gina had sat down in front of the video camera in their Paris safe house, with Damien on the other end all the way in Manchester, and asked if he'd like to live with them. Leon, Miki, and Genevieve had been in the living room in the Manchester safe house, too, listening carefully to the conversation. ("Eavesdropping," Damien had later called it, having learned the word not long before that.)

 _"What about my mom?" Damien had asked._

 _"We're just…" Gina had looked at Henrik, unsure what to say._

 _"We're just asking in case.. in case she can't come to find you right away," Henrik finished for her._

 _Damien frowned. "But why can't she? You guys are taking down the bad guys. They can't bother us anymore if they're dead, right?"_

In their shared minds, Leon had felt Gina flinching at the word _dead_. It seems incredible now, that Gina—or any of them—used to recoil at the thought of killing.

 _"Your mom asked us to take care of you before she left," Gina said. "And she… she might take a while to get back to you, Damien, even if she's cleared to go as soon a possible. I mean… she could be hiding halfway around the world."_

 _"She could be in Australia," Damien added, chuckling._

 _"If she is, at least she'll have an interesting view," Gina said._

Gina's smile didn't reach her eyes then. Leon wonders, now, if Damien's smile had reached his. He wonders if Damien, despite all his apparent optimism about his mom returning eventually, had entertained the worst case scenario, too.

 _"So if your mom's in Australia," Henrik continued, "she might take a few months to get back to us. There might be Sensates on her way back who might need some help. She'd like to help them, wouldn't she?"_

 _"She always likes to help." Damien beamed, a proud beam._

 _"If she can't come home right away, would you like to live with us for a while?" Gina asked._

 _"Yeah!" He piped up. "But what about after she comes home?"_

 _"You can stay with us if you wish," Gina offered. "Both of you."_

 _"Maybe." Damien shrugged._

 _"Or if you want to leave with her," Henrik added, "you can."_

 _Damien smiled. "I'd like that."_

Sitting in the kitchen now, watching the boy who had grown so much since she'd last seen her, Gina fears Damien is still mad that she'd abandoned him, that she'd chosen grief instead of a promise. Leon can feel her anxiety crawling through their shared mind, overwhelming all the memories they'd shared with the boy back when they all lived in Paris.

Leon shakes his head at Gina, insisting Damien understands. He always does or at least tries to, even if it means hurting himself.

Genevieve walks over from the couch to lean against the kitchen counter, all four of them now crammed around a space meant for two. She seconds what Leon thinks. _He could never stay mad at you, I don't think._

"I know it's not the same without Henrik." Damien, who had been silently watching this exchange, turns to the empty chair where Gina still sits, "But… happy birthday, Gina."

This time, Leon can tell Damien's smile reaches his eyes.

* * *

 **A/N** :

Let it be known that Sepetember 21st, 2019 will be an actual Saturday. I do not fool around. Ask Google.


	5. Chapter 5: Genevieve

**A/N:**

*Emerges from the depth of my new obsession.* Hiiiii there! I haven't forgotten about this universe. But I HAVE had trouble pulling my attention away from this new wonderful show that I stumbled upon called The Magicians. If any of you are looking for great characters and too many feels, check it out!

Don't worry, though, I am far from done with this fandom. I have like three fic ideas up my sleeve, and they're not even part of Veracity Verse. So you can pry Sense8 away from my cold, dead hands. It's just a matter of getting my brain to cooperate, because attention is necessary, and new obsessions have a tendency to drain all of it and leave no room for writing. Alas.

I have plans for the last chapter, so I'm hoping I can get my brain to cooperate enough for me to crank out a happy ending for Leon and G in the next week or two, but no promises. I'll try my best :)

* * *

Chapter 5: Genevieve

Genevieve lays in bed that night next to Leon and listens to the sound of his gentle snoring. Seeing Leon's sketches of her reading the illustrated copy of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ makes Genevieve want to lose herself in magic all over again, and her mind is racing with thoughts about crystal balls and prophecies and fate. Harry had been roped into a life of playing savior because of a Seer's vision, one that controlled not only the course Harry's life but also Voldemort's. It's no use to wonder what could have happened had Voldemort never heard the prophecy that Harry would be his downfall. What's done is done. What's taken cannot be returned.

Genevieve has always been an advocate of free will, but a part of her wants to believe some supernatural force, somewhere, made all of this happen, made Henrik leave this world too early. Maybe she just wants something to blame for Henrik's death. With the way things were going for Sensates around the world, there was no way her Cluster wouldn't have done something to help. It seemed inevitable that they and the August 8th Cluster would cross paths, for better or worse.

And despite everything, Genevieve doesn't wish she'd never engaged in the fight for the freedom of Sensates. Being part of the active rebellion had defined her life from the night it happened. She can't go back in time and rewrite a life without all the fighting. She just wishes she knew what exactly she and her Cluster would be signing up for, the moment they helped Will Gorski come up with the BPO invasion plan.

Slowly, she inches away from Leon and sneaks out of the room. Harry Potter sounds like a welcome way to end the evening. She wonders if Harry knew, or even _wanted_ to know, what he was signing up for when he first found his way into the magical world. What better to celebrate the anniversary of a day her Cluster wished to forget by commiserating with an eleven-year-old?

Damien is on the couch with his leg crossed, the illustrated copy of the book in question sprawled out across his lap. He's frowning at the drawing of the acceptance letter clutched in an owl's talons, absentmindedly tracing the edge of the page, so he doesn't notice when Genevieve sits on the floor next to him and cranes her head to stare at the same page.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" she whispers.

"It's not a school night," he shrugs, meeting her eyes. He slides down the couch to join her on the floor. "And there's no Filch to catch me out of bed."

"Do you wish you're at Hogwarts?"

Damien's 11th birthday had passed three months ago, and Leon had decided against ordering a Harry Potter-themed cake this year. He'd let Damien skip school that day, and they had a great time at Paultons Park trying out every rollercoaster there was. Damien never brought up Hogwarts, for which Genevieve was especially thankful. She had been the one to introduce Damien to the series when he'd first moved into the Paris safe house, and she would have felt responsible if he were disappointed by the lack of owls on his birthday.

"Maybe you're either a Sensate _or_ a wizard," Damien speculates. "Or neither."

"Maybe," she agrees. "What would you have picked if you had the choice?"

"Sensate," Damien says immediately.

"Really? Why?"

"Because magic can't do much if you really think about it," Damien says.

"Can't it?"

Damien closes the book and hands it over to her before picking himself off the floor. He stands watching Genevieve for a second before he looks over at the clock. It's almost midnight now. Almost the end of the birthday she hadn't properly celebrated for two years. A tradition that is now changing.

He gives her a sad look. "Magic can't bring back the dead."

Genevieve takes his spot on the couch after he's gone to bed, thumbing through the book that had lost most of its magic on her long ago. Harry Potter was a series you were meant to grow up with and grow out of, and to Genevieve, it was no exception. The more she saw of the magical world, the more she realized how much problems magic caused rather than solved. And Harry had probably realized the same thing, more so with every friend he'd lost.

Some children at the Sensorium Children's Shelter are still holding on to the same Hogwarts dream, of being whisked away from this life into a better one. Gina had decided to introduce the books to these kids as an escape, and they had welcomed it. Genevieve wonders if they'll fall out of love, too, once they realize magic can't change their pasts.

"One thing's the same, though," Gina appears next to her, gazing out the window of her bedroom. Genevieve doesn't know how thoughts about Hogwarts had brought her back to Amsterdam. "They'll have to stay in hiding, wizard or not."

Genevieve sighed. That's the one thing fiction and her reality had in common.

"In another three years, they won't have to," Genevieve recalls.

Mavis has been keeping Genevieve's Cluster up to date on Veracity's five-year plan to reveal the existence of Sensates to the world: a vaguely written journal article on frontal lobe anatomies there, a news report on people having strange visions there… So far, things are going on-schedule.

"I don't know if that's a good thing," Gina confesses.

"I don't know," Genevieve agrees. "But it can't be worse than when BPO was around, can it?"

Gina laughs, a dry, ironic kind of laugh. "No, I suppose it can't."

Genevieve notices Gina's been crying—her voice cracks when she talks, and her eyes are glistening with leftover tears. The guilt-ridden part of Genevieve wishes she was there with Gina on their birthday today. But the selfish part of her wishes she can stay in London with Leon forever, bickering about stupid things like how mint ice cream tastes like toothpaste.

"Please don't stop on my account," Gina tells her.

"Stop what?"

Gina reaches out her hand, and Genevieve takes it, gazing into the eyes of her Cluster-mate with a questioning frown. "You know what," Gina insists.

"I chose this, Gina. I chose to stay with you in Amsterdam. I thought we could—"

"You thought _I_ could use the company," Gina finishes for her.

Genevieve can't help but chuckle: Cluster-mates just can't stay out of each other's heads sometimes. Even now, even when she and Gina are sitting down to talk about their feelings out loud. For once.

"I had to complete my degree. It's not just for you," Genevieve quips.

"You graduated last month," Gina points out.

Genevieve rolls her eyes. Well, so much for that excuse. "So I did."

They're in Leon's living room again. Genevieve sits on the ground and looks at the closed door behind which Leon is sleeping, and she doesn't realize she's smiling until she catches Gina looking at her.

"So? Now what?" Gina asks, and Genevieve's eyes widen, because for the first time in God knows how long, Gina's smiling _back_.

"I like staying here. I missed Damien. But I don't know what Leon wants," Genevieve confesses. "I don't want to assume."

"So don't."

"What am I—what am I supposed to say?"

Genevieve feels Gina's presence at the back of her mind, peering into her thoughts about prophecies. _I don't think you need to say anything._

Defeated, Genevieve sighs. "I'll talk to him. Are you sure you want this?"

"What I want—"Gina puts both hands on her shoulders—"is for you to be happy. But this isn't about me, silly. You're allowed to put yourself first."

Deep down, Genevieve knows that. But she can't bring herself to think about where she wants to be when she feels she's needed somewhere else. Hearing Gina say it, though, makes her feel less guilty, but the thought of it still makes her cheeks warm.

"Okay, then, think about it this way," Gina says. "I would never forgive myself if you let Leon go because of me."

"Yes, ma'am." Genevieve nods. But she's still thinking about Gina, about the life she'd lost.

In three years, everyone will know Sensates exist, and there will no doubt be people who will find them threatening, who will try and emulate what BPO has done in the past. What happens if Genevieve takes a chance with Leon now? What if—

"Do you ever regret it?" Genevieve blurts out before she can stop herself. Not that she can ever hide anything from Gina.

"I've asked myself the exact same thing." Gina looks away. She swallows once before she continues, "I will never regret what I had. And I never wish to forget."

"Even when it hurts?"

 _Especially when it hurts._ Gina looks back at her.

 _Why?_

"Because I only cry for things that I wish would never end." A single tear rolls down Gina's cheek, and she quickly wipes it away like she fears someone might catch her in the act. "That's how I know it was worth it."


	6. Chapter 6: Leon

Chapter 6: Leon

Leon wakes up at the crack of dawn the next morning, mindful of Genevieve's sleeping form next to him. She had hogged most of the blanket and mattress, leaving his legs bloody frozen and his back dangling precariously close to the edge of the bed. He doesn't try to move her. He doesn't want the morning to start with the two of them bickering.

It's unusual for Leon to be the first to wake. He's always the one being pulled grudgingly out of bed. On school days, his alarm would go off at the same time as Damien's, only to be ignored until Damien comes stomping in, yanking the blanket clean off his body.

Despite waking up early, he thinks he's never slept so well.

 _The last time he'd found Genevieve asleep next to him, they were in Paris. The four of them had scattered Henrik's ashes in six places: Amsterdam, where Henrik grew up; Sydney, the place he and Gina had fallen in love; London; Galway in Ireland; and Teller in Alaska. The last of his ashes were buried in their backyard in Paris, on top of which they'd planted grape vines. A part of him would stay there after all of them left. The cruelest form of irony._

 _Henrik had left a will back at the Paris safe house. He'd kept it hidden from everyone, even Gina. Gina had found it under her diary on her desk hours after they'd finished planting his vines. A quick glimpse into Henrik's memories told them he'd written it and left it there after she'd fallen asleep the night he and Kala and Lito played Mario Kart to blow off steam before the battle._

I want to say I'm certain we're all going to make it out alive, but this is the one thing I can't promise, _Henrik had written, the words scribbled out and traced over each other until he was positive he'd spelled everything right._ If the four of you are reading this, if this is the last time you hear from me, bury me in the places that are part of each of you.

 _"A letter!" Gina had exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "A fucking letter! He wrote us a fucking letter! I can't believe he'd thought—"_

 _She choked up and started sobbing again. Miki gave her a tight hug, leaning her head against Gina's chest. Gina didn't finish her sentence, but being a Sensate meant she didn't have to. Leon knew what she was going to say: Henrik had thought he wasn't going to make it, and he didn't._

 _"Henrik wrote a letter?"_

 _They turned and saw Damien standing at the door to Gina and Henrik's room, staring at the piece of paper still clutched in Gina's hand. He had been up in his room. No one had heard him come downstairs._

 _"Can… Can I see it?" Damien asked, looking down at his fidgeting hands._

 _Genevieve had sat down on their bed and buried her face in her hands while Miki read the letter out loud. Now she looked up, frowning at the situation in front of her: Leon standing frozen by the nightstand, Miki and Gina holding each other by the desk. She stood and walked over, putting a hand on Damien's shoulder. "Later, okay?" she'd asked with a strained smile._

 _Damien nodded slowly. He let Genevieve guide him out into the kitchen without asking anything else. Leon wondered how in the world Genevieve was able to get herself back up when all he wanted to do was curl into a ball by the foot of the bed and stay down._

 _The next morning, Leon had woken up to find Genevieve curled up in his bed, her face carefully washed so he couldn't see any traces of tears. Leon realized, then, that Genevieve wasn't the strong one by choice. She was strong because if she wasn't, no one would take her place._

"I'm sorry," Leon whispers. "It shouldn't have always been you."

Genevieve shuffles in their shared bed but doesn't wake. She inches down, burrowing herself deeper into their blanket. A few tears escape the corner of her eyes, and Leon can't tell if they're his or her own.

 _We all ran,_ Miki thinks from her rental cabin in Siberia, slipping into Leon's thoughts. _We all ran, and I was the first._

Miki had been the first one to leave Paris. She'd stayed the night after they'd buried Henrik's ashes and planted his vines, and by dawn, she was gone.

"You had your reasons," Leon says, appearing by her side in front of her fireplace. Miki scoots over to make room on the couch. "I had mine."

Miki nods, the guilt still apparent on her face. "And Genevieve has—I mean, _had_ —her reasons to stay."

"Had?" he asks.

"I don't think she needs to anymore."

"But what about Gina?"

Miki shrugs. "Genevieve's out of excuses. She'll still try to stay, of course. But it won't work. Gina's not gonna let her."

"She'll go back to Galway, then?" Leon asks with a frown.

"Well, she will if you don't ask."

"Ask? Ask what?"

Miki looks like she wants to chuck a log at him. She tosses the log into the fire instead, seeing as Leon's not really there.

"Ask her to stay? With us? I…" Leon turns back to watch the flames. "I don't know if she wants to stay. Stay with us."

" _Leon_." Miki turns him back to face her, laying both hands on his shoulder so he has to look at her. "Leon, Leon, Leon. We can literally see inside her head. I think we both know what she's gonna say. All you gotta do is ask."

"Well, asking's the bloody hard part, isn't it?"

"You don't have to use words." Miki rolls her eyes. "You're clearly at a loss for them."

"Thanks."

"You know what you have to do." Miki puckers her lips and kisses the air.

Before Leon can think of a clever retort, he finds himself back in London, watching Genevieve stir in bed.

He reaches for her mind slowly as he watches her chest rise and fall, her wild hair tumbling down her shoulders at all angles. All he feels is the slow static he'd come to associate with a mind in a deep, dreamless sleep. _Stay_ , Leon thinks now as he watches her. _Please stay._

It feels wrong to even ask. She had been the one to ask two years ago, and he'd looked into her eyes and still—stupidly, foolishly—decided to leave.

 _It was three days after Miki had gone without saying goodbye. If it were any other situation, Leon would have been angry at Miki for it, but given the circumstances, he couldn't have said he'd have done it differently in her place. Gina had quietly announced at noon that she was going to volunteer in the new children's shelter in Amsterdam. She said she was doing it for the Sensorium orphans left from the war. She had avoided Damien's eyes as she spoke._

 _They had spent the rest of the day in silence, packing everything in their rooms without a destination in mind. Even Damien followed their lead without protest. They decided, without speaking, that they couldn't stay in this house, not when Henrik's absence still stung like a freshly cut wound. It was best to leave the house with all the good memories and remove everyone from it before the full wave of the devastation hits and washes it all out._

 _That night Damien had fallen asleep in the middle of packing, right on top of an open suitcase that belonged to Henrik. Leon had picked him up and put him in bed, tucking the blanket tightly around him. He didn't want this house to be the last place he and Damien were together._

 _He already knew he had to say goodbye to everyone else._

 _Genevieve had followed Leon down the hall back to his room. She knocked on his doorframe while he planted himself in his chair, staring at the wall. Leon wished she would just say goodnight and leave the rest for morning. He hadn't had time to think of the right things to say._

 _He looked up and nodded, letting her in._

 _"You could stay," she said quietly, looking out the window._

 _He'd known she didn't expect him to say yes. He and Genevieve knew everything about each other then, save for the one thing Leon hid from her. And he wanted to stay with her. God, he wanted it so much. But he couldn't, and she knew, and he hated that he had to prove her right._

 _"I… This… This is no place for Damien," he mumbled._

 _She nodded slowly, knowingly. "No, you're right. It isn't."_

 _"It isn't," Leon repeated, hoping saying it twice would let him convince himself. "I think it's better for Damien if we go somewhere else. Or move back to London."_

 _"Yeah." She tried to smile. It lasted for a second. "Yeah, London's good. He'll like it there."_

"He does like it here," Genevieve says, eyes still closed. How long has she been awake? "You don't have to feel bad for leaving, you know."

"It was selfish of me," Leon says.

"Not all of it," she insists. "Only a fraction. Not the part that matters."

"You think so?"

"You gave Damien a home. A chance to start over."

"New friends," he adds.

"Friends from school." She chuckles. "We're getting too old for him."

"We are."

"You really have changed," she observes. "The old Leon would never have admitted he was getting old."

"Do you like it?" He grins cheekily. "This new and improved version of me?"

"Yes. No. Dunno. Haven't decided." She prods him gently on chest over his heart. "But you're still _you_. You keep the same secrets."

"Secrets, you say?" Leon inches his head closer, his pillow bumping against hers. "Tell me, G. What do you think I'm hiding?"

Genevieve puts a hand behind his neck and pulls him closer until his head is resting on her pillow. He opens his mouth to ask what she's up to, but her kiss catches his lips and seals them shut. She hums happily when she realizes she's caught him by surprise, and he kisses her back, feeling the corners of her mouth curl into a smug smile.

He cannot believe he'd slept on this for two years.

He wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her closer so the kiss will last. This kiss is not like he'd imagined. This is real. And this is much, _much_ better.

"Am I right, or am I right?" she asks when he finally lets go.

Leon shakes his head, laughing in relief. "That was supposed to be my line." He can't even pretend to whine. " _I_ was supposed to kiss _you_."

"Please. You would've had me waiting 'till my hair's all gray."

She has a point, but not one he's willing prove just yet. "You're Merida," he decides on a retort. "Your hair's always gonna be red like a bloody bonfire."

Genevieve coils a strand of her hair around her finger and examines it for a moment. She glares back at Leon with no malice, her blue eyes glinting in the soft morning light. "Call me Merida again, and I _will_ get out of London this instance."

"And if I don't?"

She leans in for another kiss. "I'll stay."

* * *

 **A/N:**

Their birthday is September 21st, so the vine is their Celtic sign. That was why they chose to plant grape vines on top of Henrik's ashes. It represents something about all of them, and it unites them.

* * *

 **To all of you:**

Hi there, everyone,

I have not disappeared off the face of the earth. I still remain on this planet, with all its perks and drawbacks.

The last few months had been chaotic for me, to say the least. Graduation and the subsequent seeking-of-things-to-do-for-a-living was a whole mess, and I'd also come to learn lots of things about myself that I didn't anticipate. It was all very helpful, honestly. Nothing bad. It just used up more energy than I wanted, and left me with no mind space to get this story written.

But Leon and Genevieve had always been on my mind, nagging me to go finish this bloody thing. So after things have finally settled down last week, relocations and starting my new job and all, I decided it was time to put a full stop to this lovely little tale of my OCs so I can start new projects during NaNoWriMo (which is SO SOON, OMG!) and look forward.

Things I have planned for NaNo includes:  
\- A story of a 15-year-old Sensate Damien and his newfound Cluster, particularly one sad Russian boy with a questionable past  
\- A tale of how Kiira comes to terms with having two brothers, and how Capheus comes to terms with the badass, intelligent woman his baby sister had become  
\- AND MOST EXCITINGLY (just because I've been sitting on this story for over a freaking YEAR): THE BEGINNING OF THE SENSE8 HOGWARTS AU. Yes. All the characters you know and love (or hate!), thrust into the world of magic.

I have no idea how much of this I will get through, but I will try to touch on each of the three projects for at least one chapter. I might not post so much during November, but I'll try to meet the 50k goal and do revisions after before I share things with all of you. It's easier to do so because I have the plots outlined. THIS story, meanwhile, had been a bit of a "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it" gamble, and I've found that prior organization works much more efficiently for me as a writer, so no more of this!

If any of you are interested in seeing what the Hogwarts AU is about, I have a few posts on the characters' backstories in that universe on my tumblr blog, chaptersonetoinfinity, under the tag #Sense8 Hogwarts AU, including an overall one in which I explain the timeline and the gist of the very grand, very ambitious plot.

The whole AU will likely take seven stories, one for each year, to get through. I have no idea how long it will be, but it will likely reach Veracity-length by the end of book 7, if not double that. Should I have kept things more concise to spare myself time and anguish? Yes. But will I? Not likely. Go big or go home, I say.

Thank you all so much for reading and living in this Veracity Verse adventure with me. Dream on!

Love,  
Sas (Nightjar Patronus)


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